Tennis elbow: PRP: Mishra et al (2006)

Dr. Reeves' Notes: 141 consecutive patients with elbow epicondylar pain. Patients that failed a standardized physical therapy protocol and a variety of other nonoperative treatments (20) were assigned to treatment with either PRP (15) or bupivicaine (5) injection. The groups were non blinded. (non blinded control). At 8 weeks improvements in pain were 60% in the PRP and 16% in the bupivicaine group. Note both groups were then offered PRP and at 6 months 81% improvement was noted in all 20 patients combined. At 12 months minimum 93% improvement was noted. Blinding did not occur at IRB request, accounting in part of the very small control group. All had pain over medial or lateral epicondyle (14/15 lateral) and pain at the elbow with resistance of either resisted flexion or extension respectively. The number of patients that were able to be contacted was not mentioned. Nevertheless results were impressive. Noted is that a blinded clinical trial was approved and status of this is not clear.

A copy of the complete study on Tennis Elbow in PDF format is available here.